Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $69 Billion on 2023-10-13

[iroboto]

So wtf is MS worried?

it's not technically a service on it's own when compared to the rest of the services on that list. You can't buy xcloud. It's currently just a feature of gamepass ultimate.
It's not really known how many MAU's would be on xcloud if they separated it from gamepass ultimate.
Unfortunately they can't, or likely won't. So I suppose I brought up a moot point.

The point isn't that it owns the majority of the marketshare.
The point is that, even if it owns 99% of the marketshare, it may not be enough for cloud gaming to be profitable enough to invest in.

As in, if there are only 1000 streaming players per month, and you own 60% of it. Who gives a fuck because placing xcloud servers around the world globally and keeping them up is burning a hole in your pocket for not enough players.

That's what I challenge from the regulators today, I don't think many if any are making any significant revenue from game streaming, but the costs to build and support a cloud streaming platform is significant.
Not really sure how i see this as a win for gamers.
Gamers favourite games will not come onto streaming. Therefore we are forever bound to purchasing hardware to play games and absorb increasing prices in hardware.

 

[iroboto]

No I am saying abandon the deal and start lay offs in the UK to pay for the deal falling through. Why continue to invest in a market that is hostile to you

that's insanity. Companies would be more than happy to fill the gap of MS leaving the UK market. That's just unnecessary self destruction.

I don't believe COD matters that much, the surveys are a crock of shit. If it really was that big a factor, just drop 5B per title for complete exclusivity for each title and you could do this for 12 years. It would still be a better use of money than terminating all of your employees in UK. You don't get talent back.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's not really known how many MAU's would be on xcloud if they separated it from gamepass ultimate. Unfortunately they can't, or likely won't. So I suppose I brought up a moot point.

The xCloud MAU figures would have come from Microsoft and I presume they were asked to provide numbers that reflected actual XCloud usage distinct from GamePass. Othwrwise, what numbers are Microsoft providing?

 

[iroboto]

The xCloud MAU figures would have come from Microsoft and I presume they were asked to provide numbers that reflected actual XCloud usage distinct from GamePass. Othwrwise, what numbers are Microsoft providing?

They are providing xcloud usage figures. But the usage is free because it's bound to game pass ultimate. As we know how it works with F2P services, majority of the players do not pay, and there are only a small handful of whales that pay to keep the service alive.

The other services listed are people paying to use the streaming service. GPU users are using xcloud because it's apart of the service, not because they want the xcloud service. I suspect very few people are out there that pay for GPU exclusively for xcloud because they do not have a PC or Xbox.

I typically use xcloud to play games before i download them. If I like them enough I will download it. If I don't' like it enough, I don't have to waste time or bandwidth or storage to download them. Thus, GPU users, can take advantage of technology of streaming without needing to pay for a streaming service.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They are providing xcloud usage figures. But the usage is free because it's bound to game pass ultimate.

Ah gotchya, mis-read your earlier post. Yeah, avid gamers do not yet seem ready to embrace the cloud in large numbers. This explains why Sony didn't do much with PSNow, why Google bailed on Stadia, and why GeForce Now leverages free capacity in Nvidia's larger server architecture. Cloud seems like a side gig for everybody.

 

[iroboto]

Ah gotchya, mis-read your earlier post. Yeah, avid gamers do not yet seem ready to embrace the cloud in large numbers. This explains why Sony didn't do much with PSNow, why Google bailed on Stadia, and why GeForce Now leverages free capacity in Nvidia's larger server architecture. Cloud seems like a side gig for everybody.

Yea it's a troubling position. I understand the regulator's concern here with monopolization of a relatively open market. I just don't think that market as a whole is going to succeed without some heavy hitting titles.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Bobby kotick always has a problem running his mouth doesnt he. Considering the situation isn't it better for Acti to be quiet? The whole reason for Acti being in dire straights was due to his leadership after all

 

[Dr. Nick]

For the cloud side of things, I see Microsoft blocking Xcloud access in the UK. It isn't like it was bringing them much revenue. Therefore they don't need to worry about Xbox running away with the market in the UK because Microsoft won't compete in the UK's cloud streaming market. That seems easy to me. It's convincing them to allow the deal through without selling COD or Activision, which seems challenging.

Before someone says something, remember that Xcloud is only available as part of Gamepass Ultimate, it might be a selling point, but it is not the main selling point.

 

[eastmen]

econd, the weakening of PlayStation, both in terms of its range and revenue, could eventually harm all console gamers. Consumers currently benefit from the fact that Xbox and PlayStation compete closely with each other. Although we recognise that PlayStation is currently the market leader in consoles, PlayStation’s strong competitive offering makes it necessary for Xbox to compete hard to attract users, including on price and through the quality of its console, games, and multi-game subscription offering. Weakening PlayStation by taking important content away from its platform would reduce, not increase, Microsoft’s incentive and SIE’s ability to compete in the console market. This could eventually lead to higher prices, reduced range, lower quality, worse service and/or reduced innovation in gaming consoles and their games for all gamers.

This is why most people think the CMA are foolish. So they are saying that MS has to compete hard to attract users but if MS were to buy activision and attract more users then Sony wouldn't work hard to re-engage with those previous owners?

They go on to list all the things that MS has done to attract users and fail to increase market share. But then they go on to say that MS buying activision would lead to negative outcomes like console and game price increases. Remind me again which company raised prices on software at the start of the generation and raised prices on their console first ?

So again it seems that the CMA just wants to protect Sony's market share.

Where is SIE's incentive to compete in the console market ? The logical conclusion is that if market share is more equally distributed then both companies would have to compete harder in the market not just MS.

 

[eastmen]

Not sure why your battlefield vs cod quote doesn't show up. I'd just like to point out that of course COD is outselling battlefield. COD is a yearly release (sometimes more than once a year with remasters ) Battlefield is not.

This is COD's releases (not counting dlc or remassters) from franchise launch to 2021 as per your figures

• Call of Duty (2003)
• Call of Duty: Finest Hour (2004)
• Call of Duty 2 (2005)
• Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (2005)
• Call of Duty 3 (2006)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
• Call of Duty: World at War (2008)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012)
• Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015)
• Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)
• Call of Duty: WWII (2017)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021)

So there are what 20 games

For Battlefield you have

1. Battlefield 1942 (2002)
2. Battlefield Vietnam (2004)
3. Battlefield 2 (2005)
4. Battlefield 2142 (2006)
5. battlefield bad company (2008)
6. Battlefield 1943 (2009)
7. battlefield bad company 2 (2010)
8. Battlefield 3 (2011)
9. Battlefield 4 (2013)
10. battlefield hardline (2015)
11. battlefield 1 (2016)
12. battlefield V (2018)
13. Battlefield 2042( 2021)

So COD has had an additional 7 games of sales. Not to mention the first Battlefield game on consoles was 2005 (battlefield 2 modern combat) and even some games afterwards like 2142 were also only pc/mac .

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is why most people think the CMA are foolish. So they are saying that MS has to compete hard to attract users but if MS were to buy activision and attract more users then Sony wouldn't work hard to re-engage with those previous owners?

No, they are saying MS can compete with everything else that makes a console rather than isolating key content to their platform. "...including on price and through the quality of its console, games, and multi-game subscription offering..."

The argument is MS can compete by making good hardware, good games, and good services, rather than making key multiplatform content platform exclusive. Given 20 million COD players who will not buy a platform without COD, with the game being multiplatform they are free to choose their platform based on price, hardware, and service quality. If that content becomes platform exclusive, those 20 million people have to buy the platform it is on to continue their preferred game even if that platform is overpriced or poorer in other respects.

Again, the TV metaphor. Presently you can watch any programme on any TV. If LG introduced a range of exclusive contnet that streams to only their TVs, that doesn't take anything away from other non-LG TV owners - all their content remains the same. But if LG buy rights to the most popular franchises so they can only be viewed on LG TVs, they are reducing the experience for other TV-brand owners. And that be even worse if LG bought the rights to a programme that's midway, finishing Series 3 multiplatform and then S4 and S5 are LG exclusive, forcing people to buy a new LG TV in order to watch the rest of the story. If that strategy works and people do buy LG TVs to watch the content that used to be on any TV but is now only on LG TVs, LGs earnings will be up and everyone else's will be down and LG won't need to compete on TV quality as hard because they can compete on this content.

 

[iroboto]

If that strategy works and people do buy LG TVs to watch the content that used to be on any TV but is now only on LG TVs, LGs earnings will be up and everyone else's will be down and LG won't need to compete on TV quality as hard because they can compete on this content.

That’s precisely what’s happening today.
From a regulator point of view the irony is massive and is precisely why Brazil and others have pointed at this particular fallacy.

Sony is LG in your example. Everyone gets to watch the same content but it’s available on LG TVs first. It’s the only TV that let’s you watch the series in 4K, it’s the only TV that let’s you watch the behind the scenes content.

They don’t have to own studios to have the same effect.

Sony is largely dominating the console industry through content control, no one is certainly enthusiastic about their actual service offerings. Exotic hardware are no longer relevant as a differentiating piece because game engines have changed the landscape with multi deployment strategies. With the pressure to keep prices low, both are stuck using the exact same vendors, so exotic hardware is out of the question anyway.

Compounding issues is the concept of a lead platform, that even if the competition were to offer significantly better hardware, it would make no difference because the lead platform is the biggest platform and Sony the market leader will require forms of parity that will not allow games to be pushed further outside of well, minor settings and resolution changes.

Content control is the game industry today, MS have innovated significantly (BC, Dolby, enhanced BC, Game Pass, xcloud, cross play, cross progression, play anywhere, family game pass, monthly payments for consoles, 2 separate consoles to cover different price points, elite controllers, custom controllers, the list is long) to get around Sonys control over content.

CliffyB skipped Xbox with his game and didn’t even sign a deal with Sony. His limited funding and resources only allowed
Him enough yo release on 1 platform, so that platform was Sonys.

There are massive compounding advantages of being the leader in game industry with the way business is done.

Regulators need to see this.

I’m not saying throwing huge oodles of money is a fair way to solve the problem, but to say they haven’t tried a lot before throwing big money around get into the content control game would be false.

It’s easy to hate MS, but really it’s understandable why all new entrants are failing here.

 

[troyan]

Microsoft is in this business for over 20 years. None of Sonys PS1 franchise are relevant anymore. They could have done the same as Sony. SEGA or Nintendo arent even able to buy AB for this amount.

 

[Nesh]

That’s precisely what’s happening today.
From a regulator point of view the irony is massive and is precisely why Brazil and others have pointed at this particular fallacy.

Sony is LG in your example. Everyone gets to watch the same content but it’s available on LG TVs first. It’s the only TV that let’s you watch the series in 4K, it’s the only TV that let’s you watch the behind the scenes content.

They don’t have to own studios to have the same effect.

Sony is largely dominating the console industry through content control, no one is certainly enthusiastic about their actual service offerings. Exotic hardware are no longer relevant as a differentiating piece because game engines have changed the landscape with multi deployment strategies. With the pressure to keep prices low, both are stuck using the exact same vendors, so exotic hardware is out of the question anyway.

Compounding issues is the concept of a lead platform, that even if the competition were to offer significantly better hardware, it would make no difference because the lead platform is the biggest platform and Sony the market leader will require forms of parity that will not allow games to be pushed further outside of well, minor settings and resolution changes.

Content control is the game industry today, MS have innovated significantly (BC, Dolby, enhanced BC, Game Pass, xcloud, cross play, cross progression, play anywhere, family game pass, monthly payments for consoles, 2 separate consoles to cover different price points, elite controllers, custom controllers, the list is long) to get around Sonys control over content.

CliffyB skipped Xbox with his game and didn’t even sign a deal with Sony. His limited funding and resources only allowed
Him enough yo release on 1 platform, so that platform was Sonys.

There are massive compounding advantages of being the leader in game industry with the way business is done.

Regulators need to see this.

I’m not saying throwing huge oodles of money is a fair way to solve the problem, but to say they haven’t tried a lot before throwing big money around get into the content control game would be false.

It’s easy to hate MS, but really it’s understandable why all new entrants are failing here.

It has been proven that franchise availability can shift wildly. And thats the benefit when Sony or LG don't really own the content as it was proven during the 360 era when ex-Playstation exclusives were seeing their way en masse on XBOX. Contrary to MS actually owning the franchises and their developer/publishers. Sony manages to rip the benefits of simply being market leaders, and nothing else.

 

[eastmen]

No, they are saying MS can compete with everything else that makes a console rather than isolating key content to their platform. "...including on price and through the quality of its console, games, and multi-game subscription offering..."

And purchasing studios like Sony right ? Which is what this deal is about

The argument is MS can compete by making good hardware, good games, and good services, rather than making key multiplatform content platform exclusive. Given 20 million COD players who will not buy a platform without COD, with the game being multiplatform they are free to choose their platform based on price, hardware, and service quality. If that content becomes platform exclusive, those 20 million people have to buy the platform it is on to continue their preferred game even if that platform is overpriced or poorer in other respects.

MS has been doing all that and is not gaining market share. Because of that Sony has been able to raise the price of software and hardware. Isn't that exactly what the CMA believes will happen if MS buys activision ? If anything prices will go down because the market is more competitive.

Their own numbers show that Sony would still be neck and neck with MS if COD was exclusive. now obviously this was formed prior ms's 10 year contracts for cod. But the point still stands the % of playstation users they polled would roughly bring MS barely on top with market share

Again, the TV metaphor. Presently you can watch any programme on any TV. If LG introduced a range of exclusive contnet that streams to only their TVs, that doesn't take anything away from other non-LG TV owners - all their content remains the same. But if LG buy rights to the most popular franchises so they can only be viewed on LG TVs, they are reducing the experience for other TV-brand owners. And that be even worse if LG bought the rights to a programme that's midway, finishing Series 3 multiplatform and then S4 and S5 are LG exclusive, forcing people to buy a new LG TV in order to watch the rest of the story. If that strategy works and people do buy LG TVs to watch the content that used to be on any TV but is now only on LG TVs, LGs earnings will be up and everyone else's will be down and LG won't need to compete on TV quality as hard because they can compete on this content.

But in the real world we already have a tv producer that continues to buy up content. Actually its really funny you bring this up because Sony itself has Bravia core which offers the highest resolution and bit rate of Sony owned movies and tv shows excusive to their newest bravia XR 4k and 8k. So isn't sony reducing the experiance of other tv brand owners by not offering that sweet sweet 80Mbps ghost busters 2016 stream ? Or that 8k morbius stream ? Gotta get my morbing time . LG doesn't have its own movie / tv / anime studios so they wouldn't ever be able to compete with Sony and offer an extremely high end streaming service. oh and btw Netflix and other streaming sights are typically 25-30Mbps for 4k streams so the 80Mbps is more than double and in some cases triple the quality of the stream . Sony also offers the majority of the content for free on this service with only new releases costing money.

It seems like you picked a really bad example to try and use and its even funnier since It's sony doing this.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That’s precisely what’s happening today.
From a regulator point of view the irony is massive and is precisely why Brazil and others have pointed at this particular fallacy.

Sony is LG in your example. Everyone gets to watch the same content but it’s available on LG TVs first. It’s the only TV that let’s you watch the series in 4K, it’s the only TV that let’s you watch the behind the scenes content.

I half agree. Yes, if Sony are securing content than that's leveraging content over other qualities. If that needs regulating than it should be regulated. However, that's still a qualitative difference to buying the studios to gain control. An again, why isn't MS paying for the same contract deals? Why hasn't MS been doing exactly the same as Sony for the past 10 years? Why are MS saying, "Sony are doing individual deals and we need AB to compete" instead of securing their own deals over all this time?

Maybe I'm missing piece of the argument as to what's tied MS's hands behind their back giving Sony this business advantage in being able to wield exclusivity deals with 3rd parties leaving them looking on sadly as Sony cheats their way to success with a mild content advantage strategy MS can't match.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I half agree. Yes, if Sony are securing content than that's leveraging content over other qualities. If that needs regulating than it should be regulated. However, that's still a qualitative difference to buying the studios to gain control. An again, why isn't MS paying for the same contract deals? Why hasn't MS been doing exactly the same as Sony for the past 10 years? Why are MS saying, "Sony are doing individual deals and we need AB to compete" instead of securing their own deals over all this time?

Maybe I'm missing piece of the argument as to what's tied MS's hands behind their back giving Sony this business advantage in being able to wield exclusivity deals with 3rd parties leaving them looking on sadly as Sony cheats their way to success with a mild content advantage strategy MS can't match.

As the market leader Sony can buy exclusives for less cost than their competitors. MS can't compete on buying exclusives while their install base lags.

 

[MCharta]

As the market leader Sony can buy exclusives for less cost than their competitors. MS can't compete on buying exclusives while their install base lags.

Can money really buy anything ? Would you even accept a deal for a big established IP when the other competitor has twice if not more the user-base ? You also need to take of you ip so i'm not so sure.
I'm not following this too much but when was the last time MS had a deal with big a studio and/or an established IP ...Seems to be before leaving 360 era behind with tomb raider so a different state when it comes to market share. Am i remembering wrong ?

 

[eastmen]

Microsoft is in this business for over 20 years. None of Sonys PS1 franchise are relevant anymore. They could have done the same as Sony. SEGA or Nintendo arent even able to buy AB for this amount.

Gran turismo isn't relevant anymore ?

Aren't you also just proving the point that buying new companies to develop ip is the way to go ?

If we look at Sony what are the big games now ?

Horizon ? That is Guerrilla games a studio sony bought in 2005
Returnal ? They just bought housemarque a few years ago
Demon Souls remake ? That's bluepoint they bought them in 2021
Spiderman ? Ratchet and clank ? That's insomniac which was bought in 2019
Last of us ? sony also bought them in 2001
Ghost of Tusushima which is sucker punch that sony bought in 2011


What are the built from the ground up sony studios ?

Asibo that was built from the japan studio closures
Sand diego studio that makes MLB
santa monica with god of war although apparently valkyre which they bought in 2021 helped them with the new game
gran turismo team ?

Sony has been constantly buying up studios and absorbing them. So why is MS the bad guy here ? You bring up Sega right ? Do you think Sega was able to compete with Sony in terms of electronics when sony entered the market ? Sony had been developing custom hardware previous to entering the market. Something Sega was never able to do. There is a reason Sony was connected to so many cd based console attempts. Speaking of Nintendo , didn't sony take all the development they did in conjunction with nintendo and use that as the basis of the playstation ? I grew up with new consoles coming out all the time from a myraid of different companies. It was a great time in the 80s and 90s and then sony entered the market and their first generation sold more than any console before it , double the nes. All of the sudden there were only 3 players in the market Sony, Sega, Nintendo and in the next generation Sega went 3rd party. So if you want to talk about a company coming in and kiling off competition with buying developers, using their dominance in other markets to gain unfair advantage well maybe you should just be looking at sony. MS didn't enter the market and outsold everyone else forcing out competition that was sony. Ms wasn't dominate in every generation , that was Sony.

So if you are a fan of sony its easy to see them as the hero but if you were a fan of the other companies its easy to see Sony as the villain of the story

 

[iroboto]

I half agree. Yes, if Sony are securing content than that's leveraging content over other qualities. If that needs regulating than it should be regulated. However, that's still a qualitative difference to buying the studios to gain control. An again, why isn't MS paying for the same contract deals? Why hasn't MS been doing exactly the same as Sony for the past 10 years? Why are MS saying, "Sony are doing individual deals and we need AB to compete" instead of securing their own deals over all this time?

Maybe I'm missing piece of the argument as to what's tied MS's hands behind their back giving Sony this business advantage in being able to wield exclusivity deals with 3rd parties leaving them looking on sadly as Sony cheats their way to success with a mild content advantage strategy MS can't match.

Because the exclusivity contract will kill your IP.

It’s about inertia.

Think about your biggest cash cow of all time that will make money forever. The biggest platform drives the majority of your profits, the smaller platform drives a smaller amount. People are happy not moving, so as long as you are the biggest weight and inertia is in your favour the last thing you want to do is slow it down.

If the smaller platform pays the same amount as Sony yo get exclusivity rights you think it should make no difference but that’s not true, because you’ve killed your inertia. The bigger base won’t just switch over, they just won’t buy your product. Now you’re losing sales because now your fans have moved over to another game. you’ve just killed your IP and now MS must continue to fund exclusivity to make up the loss. Except they won’t because no one is switching over to Xbox. For a short one time burst you’ve taken long term damage.

So now you go back to PS, but you have yo deal now with lost ground and the ire of the player base thst you did exclusive deals with the smaller platform.

But if you do this with the larger platform, the smaller platform can’t hurt, because they are smaller, and even if they hurt they are a fraction of your bottom line. Therefore that deal is worth it.

The only other way around this is outright purchasing everything, in which now they no longer have to worry about these things, they will have a life line for as long as the platform survives, as they now make platform money, versus making money on each copy sold. The risks are significantly reduced and the needs of a platform to become profitable are very different from the needs of shareholders.